The Watcher

'Housewives' desperate no more

September 29, 2008|By Maureen Ryan

A radical do-over can be a daunting challenge but, when it's done right, hitting the reset button can prove to be an exciting step forward. And the verdict is in regarding the women of Wisteria Lane: The "Desperate Housewives" reboot is a success.

Creator Marc Cherry said he got his idea from "Lost": As Season 4 of "Housewives" ended, Cherry jumped his show five years into the future. That move may not have been as ambitious as "Lost's" time manipulations, but the last thing Wisteria Lane needs is a polar bear. Things among these friends and frenemies were complicated enough.

Cherry has said that he wanted to shed all the baggage that the "Housewives" had accumulated over the past four seasons, and jettisoning the show's more convoluted elements was wise. An evil stepchild, an ex or two and a cranky drug dealer were all left behind at the tail end of Season 4. Nobody will miss them.

But here's the funny thing about the "Desperate Housewives" makeover -- it actually got under way earlier, and in the final analysis, the time jump doesn't change the formula much.

Well before the Season 4 finale -- and after much experimenting -- "Desperate Housewives" had finally landed on the right mixture of soapy silliness, melodrama, humor and emotion. During Season 2, I'd called it the worst show on TV. By the middle of Season 4, however, I found myself enjoying the show

One thing has always been true of this glossy serial: Some story lines are predictable, bland and easily fast-forwarded through.

Still, casting Dana Delany as Katherine Mayfair in Season 4 is one of the smartest things Cherry has ever done. Not many actors can deftly deliver both comedy and drama, but Delany makes it look easy. Katherine's scenes with the equally persnickety Bree (Marcia Cross) are a constant delight.

Even if the other story lines sometimes drag, Bree vs. Katherine is always worth the price of admission.

As we saw Sunday night, Bree's now the busy head of a growing cookbook empire, and Katherine is her none-too-pleased underling. Is it just me, or was that pastry cook-off delicious in more ways than one?